Thursday, February 16, 2017

Dissecting Trump's Shady Past.


American Interest's James S. Henry exposes the American president's lengthy history of cozying up to affluent Russian thugs:


Fortunately, for those of us who are curious about Trump’s Russian connections, there is another readily accessible body of material that has so far received surprisingly little attention. This suggests that whatever the nature of President-elect Donald Trump’s relationship with President Putin, he has certainly managed to accumulate direct and indirect connections with a far-flung private Russian/FSU network of outright mobsters, oligarchs, fraudsters, and kleptocrats.

Any one of these connections might have occurred at random. But the overall pattern is a veritable Star Wars bar scene of unsavory characters, with Donald Trump seated right in the middle. The analytical challenge is to map this network—a task that most journalists and law enforcement agencies, focused on individual cases, have failed to do.


James Henry, an investigative economist and lawyer has brought the forensic skills of a top litigator to this analysis. It's a well documented piece, some 80 footnotes. It's not a particularly easy read but it is a complex story in which America's president is but one player.

Have a read.




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, Mound. That was an interesting read.

Trump gave another of his shambolic news conferences today. While he rambled over the well-trodden grounds of fake news, disloyal employees and his record-setting election win, an usually well-crafted statement jumped out of the hot mess: “I own nothing in Russia, I have no loans in Russia, I don’t have any deals in Russia.”

This may be true, but it completely dodges his alleged ties to Russian money.

Cap

Anonymous said...

I see Trump's latest pick for national security adviser said thanks but no thanks. Trump should give Boykin a call if he wants the best of the bestest best! Frankly I'm surprised he wasn't Trump's go-to man from the start.

Cap

rumleyfips said...

There are a lot of Canadian connections to this web of money laundering, fraud and theft. Lets keep the Muslims and get rid of the crooks.

The Mound of Sound said...


I emailed this article to a friend yesterday. Her response waS deflating. No one, she said, was going to read this. It's too long, too complex to ever garner the attention it deserves. We've been groomed to consume information in bullet form on social media and in 140-character bursts.

rumleyfips said...

I like the long form article and was happy to see the sources endnoted, but I'm 68.

The Mound of Sound said...

I'm a younger man than you, Rumley, by at least part of a year. Yes, I too read it in its entirety, once yesterday and again today. It is a bit of a slog. Yet it reveals a web of connections between America's freshly minted president and some sketchy people that justifies a thorough investigation.